Khenon said:
Is anyone else worried that they don't have that old "drive" to study hard anymore? I took my last college courses 3 years ago, and it was during grad school, so I was only taking 2 classes at a time (along with research and TA-ing credits). So the last time I had a heavy class load was in 2001! 😱 Now that med school is looming I'm worried I won't have the stones to work hard and do what it takes to get through med school. Please tell me someone else out there is having these apprehentions. 😉 Don't get me wrong. I ultimately feel that I'll get through just fine. I guess I'm looking for some validation/comiseration. 🙂
Hi there,
Medical school has a way of picking you up and carrying you along. You will ramp up or throttle down your study time based on what you find that you need. There's a huge amount of material to digest and learn for your courses so be prepared to put in the time but most people adjust to the huge volume just fine.
The good thing is that medical school courses are pretty interesting. Getting through is a process and you start to see the point of what you are learning pretty quickly. The other good thing is that most of your course work is relevant for Boards and the wards. When you get to third year, your attendings and chief residents will "pimp" you on the pre-clinical stuff. While the "pimp" sessions may seem painful, as you move along, you see the point to what they are asking you.
I had about a 50-minute attention span. I set a kitchen timer for 50-minutes and then for 10-minutes, which was my break. If something was bothering me, I would write it down on an index card and think about it during my break. My break would be used for things like getting a drink or taking a short walk to clear my head. I would never sit for hours going over the same thing because my mind was not as efficient after 50 minutes.
I kept a large bottle of water on my study table (our library would allow water bottles with sport cap and covered coffee mugs). This kept me from getting dehydrated. I also studied in a room with a large chalkboard for making concept diagrams.
Resist the urge to complain. Complaining only prolongs what you have to do anyway and gets nothing solved. If you feel the need to point out a problem with something, be prepared to offer at least two solutions to the problem. Some of your classmates are going to whine about the workload but always remember that there are plenty of people who would love to be in your shoes. Don't whine or complain. It's not professional.
I listened to my own study tapes on the subway and had index cards of memorization things for studying while waiting in line etc. The trick to the index card is to keep them short and mark off stuff as you get it mastered. I kept a very strict study schedule and took most of Saturday or Sunday off but I studied something everyday. My grades reflected my disciplined study.
I would pre-view my next days lecture material in the syllabus making notes about the things that were important. I would do any text reading before the lecture and then take notes in the syllabus or on the powerpoint handout. After the lecture, I would fill in any gaps. I would study that day's lecture materials in the evenings and pre-view for the next day. If I missed a day, I would catch up on the weekend.
For Gross Anatomy: I would pre-view the structures and make a list of everything that we would have to find by reading the dissector. I would then study the appropriate plates in the Netter atlas so I would have an idea of where to find things. I would make sketchs in my dissector as to how things looked on my cadaver and on other cadaver.
My Gross Anatomy tank group would assign two hours of dissection outside of lab so that we completed our dissections. We worked in groups of two (one to hold the atlas and one to actually dissect). Those two people would teach the structures to the rest of the tank. (Any uncompleted dissections would be dissected by the faculty and immediately labeled for the exam practical so it was in your best interests to completely dissect any regions that were to be tested.
If anyone was struggling in Gross Anatomy, I would spend time teaching them. I spent many weekends in the Gross lab holding tutorials. I helped any of my classmates that had trouble and was a peer tutor for Biochemistry, Gross Anatomy, Immuno, Path and Physiology. By helping each other, it helped to cement the learning for me. I also wanted my classmates to do as well as possible since I would be referring my patients to them in the future.
Medical school is a ton of work but as I said above, it is all pretty interesting. The years move fast and soon you are standing in line to graduate and you are amazed that you got it all done. It is very, very different from graduate or undergraduate school and more like boot camp. In order to graduate, you all have to go over the wall. Some people clear the wall by six feet and some scrape their rears ends on the way over but you all have to go over the wall. Sometimes, you have to stand back and help a classmate or two clear the wall but the best experiences come with you do that.
Good luck!
njbmd
🙂
